Doctors Make Better Clinical Notes than AI Scribes – EMJ

Doctors Make Better Clinical Notes than AI Scribes – EMJ

https://www.emjreviews.com/general-healthcare/news/doctors-make-better-clinical-notes-than-ai-scribes-new-study-finds/

Publish Date: 2026-04-20 05:24:00

Source Domain: www.emjreviews.com

• According to a 2026 study, doctors create higher-quality clinical notes compared to AI scribes across five standardized care cases.
• Researchers evaluated 11 AI scribe tools and 18 human note takers, with 30 blinded raters assessing note quality using the modified Physician Documentation Quality Instrument (PDQI-9).
• In five different clinical scenarios, human-generated notes received higher overall scores than AI-generated notes in terms of quality.
• The biggest disparity in note quality was found in an acute low back pain case, where clinicians scored an average of 43.8 out of 50, while AI scored 20.3.
• While researchers acknowledge the potential of ambient AI scribes to reduce clinician workload, they emphasize the need for independent, vendor-neutral assessments before large-scale deployment due to persisting concerns around accuracy, completeness, and note structuring.